Referring your patients to these websites also frees up your time to work with more patients, since patients are more self-sufficient when it comes to getting their questions answered.

As a nurse practitioner, there will also be times when you’ll need answers too, particularly when new diseases are found, when outbreaks are happening or when there are new medical developments that you’ll need to sue with your patients.

We’ve compiled a list of ten websites that offer practical and reliable healthcare information. Some of these sites are designed mostly for patients who want to check out what their symptoms might mean, ask a question or learn more about a recent diagnosis. Others are designed more to help healthcare professionals learn more about illnesses and conditions they might be treating, and to help them stay abreast on developments in the medical field. We think these ten websites are ones you’ll use again and again.

1. Medical Questions: This site has a great library of health questions by topic. They also have a place where you can submit your own questions, if the one you want to ask hasn’t been answered already.
2. Just Answer: Just answer allows you to ask your medical questions right on the homepage, and get an answer from a doctor or nurse.
3. Web MD: This is likely the most popular website for understanding health issues. You can search based on symptoms or a diagnosis, or you can ask your own questions of the experts on the site. This is a great site to refer your patients to after they’ve been diagnosed with a new illness.
4. Questions on Health: This is also a great site for getting answers about your symptoms, or about a recent diagnosis.
5. Mayo Clinic: This is a great site for both health professionals and for patients. You can get information on where to refer a patient, or patients can find out more about their own symptoms and diagnoses.
6. Women’s Health: This question and answer page from the US government answers the most frequently asked women’s health questions.
7. Family Doctor: This is a great website for patients to get medical questions answered or learn more about an illness. It’s written in plain, easy to understand language and covers pretty much every health topic you can imagine.
8. Women’s Health Questions: This site is devoted to the health problems that women face, from acne to problems with conception to sexual health. It’s a great place to learn more about the most common women’s health issues.
9. Medicine Net: This site offers information on all major health issues. You’ll even find a dictionary of medical terms and a section on pet health on this site. This site was modeled after Web MD, and offers an excellent alternative for patients.
10. Medscape: Medscape is designed for use by physicians and nurses. It provides updated medical information on the hottest topics in the industry. You can read the articles to keep abreast, or search for detailed information on specific illnesses.

These sites are ones we’re certain you’ll use over and over again, both on your own, and with your patients. They offer reliable and timely information. However, they are all also quick to remind patients that reviewing symptoms via a website is no substitute for getting timely medical care.

You’ll find these sites a great way to stay up to date yourself. By taking a quick review of the sites on a regular basis, you can find out new developments without taking a lot of your time. Then, you can obtain additional resources on the developments that are most important to your practice and your patients.

The Internet has provided many resources for healthcare professionals. These sites are a great example of how the Internet can work with us to improve the care we provide our patients.

Topical Psychiatry

1. Alan Gelenberg’s Blog: Dr. Gelenberg is publisher of Biological Therapies in Psychiatry Newsletter and currently the Interim Chair of Psychiatry at the Penn State Hershey Medical College.
2. All in the Mind: Natasha Mitchell is an Australian science/health journalist, radio host and producer. She presents a weekly program called All in the Mind.
3. Ars Psychiatrica: “Novalis” is the online pen name of Neil Scheurich, MD, “blogging psychiatrist extraordinaire” in NC.
4. Dr. Jeff’s and Dr. Tanya’s Blog: This psychiatry weblog offers psychiatric news and commentary about brain disorders, mental dysfunction, psychological illness, and mental health wellness.
5. Dr. Mark Goulston: Mark Goulston, M.D. is a business advisor, consultant, trainer and coach trained as a clinical psychiatrist who honed his skills as an FBI/police hostage negotiation trainer who increases people’s ability to get through to anyone.
6. Niall McLaren’s Psychiatry Blog: Niall McLaren is a psychiatrist in Darwin, Australia with an interest in applying the philosophy of science to psychiatry with the goal of bringing psychiatry into science’s mainstream.
7. Practice what I preach: Dr. Barker graduated in Medicine in the UK, and has since specialized in child and adolescent psychiatry in Australia.
8. Psychiatric Drugs: This site doles out news and insights about psychiatric drugs simply for informational purposes.
9. Shrink Rap: A blog by psychiatrists for psychiatrists. “A place to talk; no one has to listen.”
10. shrinqueRap’s Blog: NYC psychiatrist Edward W. Darell’s thoughts on achieving mental health and an enhanced quality of life.
11. The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog: This blog is a celebration of psychiatry and the benefits it brings to people and society.
12. The Antipsychiatry Blog of Harold Mandel, MD: This blog is dedicated to exposing and helping to wipe out mental health care human rights abuses.
13. The Last Psychiatrist: A blog about piracy, mercantilism and “fourth generation warfare.”
14. The Psychiatrist Blog: Dr Michelle Tempest is a psychiatrist and editor of The Future of the NHS. She talks about psychiatry and politics.
15. The Psychiatry Blog: John Deri, MD, is located in Mill Valley, CA, and has interests in human suffering, the treatment of addictions, and in sport psychiatry.

Neuroscience

16. Brains on Purpose: This blog focuses on neuroscience and conflict resolution. Written by Stephanie West Allen, JD in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz.
17. [citation needed] Tal Yarkoni is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
18. CorePsych Blog: Dr. Parker is a writer, speaker, neuroscientist and psychiatric consultant with a current focus on ADHD.
19. Dharmendra S Modha’s Cognitive Computing Blog: Dr. Modha is manager of Cognitive Computing at IBM Almaden Research Center.
20. Dr. Shock, MD, PHD: This is the personal blog of a Dutch psychiatrist working in a university hospital. His psychiatric specialty is the treatment of depression.
21. Mind Hacks: Neuroscience and psychology tricks to find out what’s going on inside your brain, supporting the book by the same name.
22. Neuron Culture: David Dobbs writes on science, medicine and nature and is working on his fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion.
23. Neuropathology Blog: Dr. Moore, neuropathologist at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, IL, discusses issues pertaining to the practice of neuropathology.
24. Nou Stuff: An aspiring cognitive neuroscientist and psychology graduate with a passion for science, Art, videogames, anime, brit culture and technology writes this blog.
25. The Frontal Cortex: Jonah Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired and the author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist.
26. The Neurocritic: This blogger deconstructs sensationalistic recent findings in human brain imaging, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopharmacology.

Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

27. Dr. Roher Psychotherapy — Blog: Daniela Roher is a psychotherapist trained in Europe and the US and who has been in practice for over 30 years.
28. Heidekolb’s Blog: Heide Kolb is a practicing Jungian analyst in New York City.
29. International Psychoanalysis: A psychoanalytic slant on the world with support from the American Psychoanalytic Foundation.
30. Jonathan Sibley Coaching & Psychotherapy: Jonathan Sibley is a trained coach and psychotherapist who is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.
31. Jung At Heart: A Jungian psychotherapist with 36 years of experience focuses on relationships, work, body image, creativity,aging, and family.
32. La Belette Rouge: Tracey is a writer and psychotherapist exploring concepts of meaning, home, family, relationships, and dreams from both sides of the couch.
33. Listening To You: Christos Tombras came to the UK from Greece, and is a member of The Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research (CFAR) and the College of Psychoanalysts – UK (CP-UK).
34. Mind Sight: “A psychoanalytic view of the psychology of daily life.”
35. Portland Therapy: Dr. Mark Gundry works with clients who are going through important and difficult changes.
36. Psycho Trainee: Drawings & Thoughts on psychoanalysis and the author’s experiences as a therapist and “therapee (if that is in fact a word)…”
37. Psychotherapy Brown Bag: Psychotherapy Brown Bag posts new information around lunchtime, hoping to foster intellectual conversations about research topics in an informal setting.
38. Shrink Central: One goal of the “Shrink Central” blog is to help readers relate to the practice of mental health as a necessary part of wellness.
39. What’s Up with Carl Jung: Dr. Parker is a solution-oriented therapist who works in collaboration with clients.

Nurse Psychiatry

40. A Psychiatric Nurse’s Blog: This blogger is a tutor in health and social care with a PhD in mental health studies and author of Looking Through The Windows of Madness.
41. The Mental Health Minute: A psychiatric nurse has seen how perspectives on mental illness has changed over the past two decades.
42. Mental Nurse: Mental Nurse is a group blog written by a variety of “Mentalists” (mental health nurses), located mostly in the UK.
43. Nurse Ratched’s Place: A deep look into nursing and the psyche with equally deep humor tinged with sarcasm.
44. The Mental Health Nurse Lecturer’s Tea Party: This blog is written by a team of Mental Health Nurse Lecturers based in the Faculty of Health at Birmingham City University.

By and For Skeptics

45. Before You Take That Pill: Doug Bremner MD is professor of psychiatry and radiology at Emory University School of Medicine and the Atlanta VAMC in Atlanta GA and author of Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health.
46. Denialism Blog: The Hoofnagle brothers focus on denial, its standard arguments, how to identify denialists and/or cranks, and discussion of general interest topics such as skepticism, medicine, law and science.
47. Frontier Psychiatrist: This blog is a critique of psychiatric practice, as well as the psychologisation of society by Dr Stephen Ginn MRCPsych, who is a London-based psychiatric trainee.
48. Psych Observer — Exposing Bad Psychiatry: Register for an account to talk about psychiatrist abuses on this popular blog.
49. Psychiatry, It’s A Killing: A rabid anti-psychiatric blog by an anonymous blogger. Plenty of links and resources.
50. The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: This blog is not peer-reviewed, is not ACCME-accredited, and is “definitely very biased.” Dr. Carlat is a psychiatrist in private practice in Newburyport, MA, and is a “pharm-skeptic.”

One of these is psychiatric nursing. Psychiatric nurses, also often called psychiatric mental health nurses, work in psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric divisions of regular hospitals. They may also work in psychiatric physicians’ offices.

How Do I Train to be a Psychiatric Nurse?

To become a psychiatric nurse, you will first need your registered nursing license, which you can get by passing the RN exam after completing nursing school or getting a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Once you have your RN license, you can work at the basic level in psychiatric nursing, performing regular RN duties in a psychiatric hospital or ward in a regular hospital. In this role, you will work with patients, taking care of their daily nursing needs, administering medications, etc. Due to the nature of some psychiatric illnesses, you may also work fairly extensively with the families of patients.

APRN

APRN stands for Advanced Practice Registered Nurse. APRN’s have a master’s degree in psychiatric mental health nursing. They typically hold the title of either Clinical Nurse Specialist or Nurse Practitioner. APRNs are able to assess, diagnose, and treat individuals or families with psychiatric problems/disorders or the potential for such disorders. Some APRNs also earn doctoral degrees in nursing.

APRNs may also specialize within psychiatric nursing. Some examples of specialties include Substance Abuse and Child-Adolescent Mental Health nursing.

Is Psychiatric Nursing for Me?

Most RN programs do rotations in every area of the medical field. During your rotation in a psychiatric ward or hospital, you’ll get a better idea of whether this is the right field for you and you can pursue your further education or a nursing job based on his decision.

How Do I Find a Nursing Program?

Many universities offer a Bachelor of Science in nursing program, and there are also separate nursing schools that will provide the education you need to qualify for the RN exam. There are fewer programs that offer the master’s degree needed to be an APRN, but they are still fairly plentiful. Because there is such a shortage of nurses today, some programs will be heavily recruiting for applicants.

Nursing programs are accredited by two different bodies in the US.

1. The National League of Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC) accredits all types of nursing education programs including masters, baccalaureate, associates and diploma.
2. The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) accredits programs that offer only master’s and baccalaureate level nursing degrees.

There are also separate accrediting bodies for advanced practice nursing fields, depending upon the area of specialty. Be certain that any nursing school you attend is fully accredited. Use this link to learn more about accreditation and nursing credentialing.

What to Expect from Psychiatric Nursing

One question that potential psychiatric nurses often have is whether or not the job is dangerous. Of course, it is true that some psychiatric patients can be violent or verbally abusive. For this reason, the job may not be the right one for everyone in the nursing field. However, it is also important to understand that many psychiatric patients do not have violent or abusive tendencies and that working with these patients can be very rewarding.

It is also important to note that when you are working with a violent or abusive patient, their conditions and tendencies are well documented. Hospitals will go to great lengths to ensure the safety of their nurses from violent patients. The violent patient is a “known entity” even though he may be unpredictable and hospitals put extra precautions into place for the safety of the patients and the staff.

All in all, psychiatric nursing can be a very rewarding field and can provide a daily challenge to those nurses with an aptitude for it. Like most other nurses, psychiatric nurses are in high demand right now, so if this is your field of interest, you’ll likely have no trouble finding job placement once you’ve met the educational requirements.

Brain arranges memory by the mean of Acquisition, where new information enters through brain along pathways between neurons at the appropriate section and part of the brain. In order to put any information deeper into memory it is very necessary to    concentration; unless you would not focus completely, the information simply passes by. The next step to remembering anything is consolidation, that is after reaching information into the brain at hippocampus it further gets consolidated when hippocampus further store the information as long-term memory. And for retrieving restored information, the brain activates the same pattern of nerve cells as used by the brain to store information.

However, below are some popular mentioned methods by which a person can improve its brain power and learn further about brain.

1. Pay as much as Attention: Paying as much as possible attention can help in improving brain power if you tend to forget things quickly and easily.  It takes around eight seconds of intent focus to process a piece of information through brain’s hippocampus and into the appropriate memory center. So, you should meditate at a quite place where no one can disturb you.
2. Involve as much as possible senses in learning: While in learning you should use to include as much as possible all the senses. Do not concentrate only with a single organ of senses combine all so you could learn and memorize things in better and an effective manner and routine.
3. Take information through the medium that you feel to be more adaptive: If you feel that you grab things better by listening then you should try to learn thing by listening instead of getting things by reading or watching.
4. Co-relate information about whatever you know and learn: The important factor that can help in improving ones memory is correlating information that is presently known with what had been taught out previously. As co-relating the previously known as well as new information with each other helps in improving brain power.
5. Putting Information in Systematic Order: Write things down in address books and datebooks and on calendars and even take note of the complex material and information. And later on reorganize that complex information for purpose of your use and application.
6. Develop skill to interpret complex material: For more complex material, you should emphasize more on the basic ideas instead of memorizing rather segregated details.

As a professional, a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner are happen to be a licensee to provide emergency psychiatric services, psychosocial and physical assessment of patients, treatment plans, and to manage patient care. More they can offer their services as consultants or as educators for families and staff. During their professional practice they focus more on psychiatric diagnosis, including the differential diagnosis of medical disorders with psychiatric symptoms, and on medication treatment for psychiatric disorders. With reference to practice they can work along in various settings about in 20 states in the United States.

In order to become a Psychiatric nurse practitioner one should have at least six to ten years of post secondary education. Initially a person should have at least six to ten years of post-secondary education. He should first of all must earn a four-year college degree in nursing (BSN) or join a Masters Entry Nursing program (or Graduate Entry to Practice Nursing program) as formulated for individuals with a Bachelor degree in a field other than nursing. After getting their Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree they go for the NCLEX-RN.

Education: After that a person must go for an approved Masters or Doctoral advanced nursing education program with at least 600 clinical hours. Individuals who select out for a  Masters Entry Level has to necessarily spend out an extra year at the start of the program taking classes to  pass the NCLEX-RN. A Masters or Doctorate prepared NP is then credentialized as a prescriber and sits for board certification. PMHNP-BC is the designated title for a board certified NP. However, to begin this course there are many schools that provide education to get enrolled into Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse practitioner programs. Some of the popular shools are Yale School of Nursing, University of California-San Francisco, and Columbia University School of Nursing.

Job Settings: As far as for work setting and environment a psychiatric nurse practitioner can work in variety of areas and environment. He can work at direct patient care which take effects in offices, hospitals and care facilities. He after a stage can work alone and can maintain an individual practice though others can work under the supervision of a psychiatrist or in an office with psychiatrists. More nurses in this area of practice can be case managers that work for health insurance companies, a number of care facilities or public health agencies.

Bachelor of Science In Nursing
Students usually take one course in psychiatric nursing. The learn general nursing that deal with all types of groups as well as foundation sciences like anatomy, biology, chemistry and physiology. They take part in clinical rotations which provide them with hands-on experience. They need to sit for NCLEX-RN test to gain the licensure as a registered nurse.

Masters of Science in Nursing (Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing)
Psychiatric nursing graduates in this program participate in clinical experience where they gain skills on how to access, supervise, consult and evaluate patients. They also get additional knowledge in drug therapy and psychiatric treatment methods for critical and chronic diseases. These Masters programs are made up of 600 clinical hours. Those who have undertaken the Masters Entry Level Pathway will need to take an extra year at the start of the program to enable them pass the licensure test.

The course focuses on the mental care throughout the patient’s lifespan. Some have a sub specialty courses such as the Child/adolescent psychiatry and the adult/ gerontological psychiatry. Here the learners are trained to put in practice the different theoretical approaches in providing mental health care. They also learn to be compassionate and collaborative to mental health patients and their families.

Online Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Programs
These courses are available in many accredited online institutions. Many of these institutions require the student to have a high school diploma or to have completed GED and must have an access to a computer. Different bachelor and Masters programs are made available for the learners. The schools that provide these programs ensure that the learners are able to get the resources they need for their study program. Students are able to complete their programs at their own pace. It is recommended for those who have very tight schedules and can get on the campus based programs. The clinical experience is a must for students in all programs and is usually undertaken in health care institutions or hospitals within the students’ location.

Graduate Certificate in Psychiatric Nursing
These are generally intended for nurses with a master’s degree. These students usually participate in two clinical practical and study topics such as behavior modification, pharmacology and health promotions. Post master programs for Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners are also available in some of the Universities and Colleges.